By DAILY EXPRESS health writer Sophie Donnelly
IF someone said you could drop pounds simply by listening to a voice recording for 10 minutes a night for 21 days, would you believe them? Lee Faulkner didn’t. “I thought it was too good to be true,” says the 38-year-old, who works in the accounts department of a London-based publishing company. “As it only took up 10 minutes of my day there was no harm in trying it.”
The weight-loss regime, devised by Thinking Slimmer, requires no diet, no calorie counting and no willpower. Instead it uses voice recordings known as Slimpods. It works in the same way as hypnosis, tapping in to your subconscious and making you think differently about food (you want to eat less) and exercise (you want to do more).
“It isn’t a diet,” says the firm’s founder Sandra Roycroft-Davis. “Our recordings aim to change people’s relationship with food.” You can choose a Slimpod tailored to your needs. The most popular target dieters with a goal in mind such as Drop A Dress Size and Create That Summer Beach Body. There is even one for chocoholics.
Lee wanted to lose weight for a holiday in Moraira on Spain’s Costa Blanca. “I needed to lose a stone because at 5ft 8.5in and weighing 14st 7lb, I didn’t feel comfortable in my skin. I downloaded the Beach Body recording to my laptop. The first time I listened it felt strange having a man’s voice talking to me. The phrase ‘anything more than nothing is something’ really stuck in my mind. He also told me to visualise how I wanted to look.”
Lee, who lives in Belvedere, Kent and is married to Tanya, imagined himself running on the beach with his three-year-old son Jack.
He found the regime slotted easily into his life. “As the recording was talking to my subconscious I could play it in the background while getting ready for bed because I didn’t have to concentrate on the words.”
Trevor Silvester, a Harley Street hypnotherapist is the calm, soothing voice on the Slimpods. He uses a technique he calls “wordweaving” which he says uses language in a way to gently retune the mind. “There is no sleep-like trance, no swinging pendulums, no funny voices or weird music,” it says on Thinking Slimmer’s website. “It’s like listening to an old friend who has the uncanny ability to influence the way you feel about yourself, your attitude to food and how you look after your body.”
The idea is that you listen to the gently persuasive language for 10 minutes a night for 21 consecutive nights. “The science is in the repetition,” explains Sandra. Scientists have shown it takes 21 days for the brain to create new neurological pathways. Bad habits are lost with the old pathways. Results can take between two to seven weeks.
However Lee saw them much sooner. “Within a week I began to see changes in my behaviour. At work I’d take the stairs instead of the lift. I began to treat food differently. While I still ate the same foods such as a banana for breakfast, a sandwich at lunch and meat and vegetables for dinner, I started eating earlier and slower. This meant I ate less. Without thinking, I also stopped snacking on crisps and chocolate.”
By day 11, Tanya could see his abdominal muscles again. She was so impressed she started listening as well, losing 1st in two weeks. “When I stepped on the scales on day 21 I’d lost 1st 7lb,” says Lee. “I now weigh 12st 12lb. I couldn’t believe it, especially as I’d been so sceptical. Now I walk everywhere, I have a lot more energy and don’t feel lethargic.
“On holiday I didn’t feel self-conscious in my shorts and spent most of the time with Jack in the pool. All my friends want to know my secret.”
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